Low Light Stargazer Lily

[chl0e]

Hey! Here's a photo I was really proud of so I thought I'd do a thread saying how I photographed it incase anyone else wanted to try out doing this kind of photographing!


Here's the photo:
Give Up on Flickr - Photo Sharing!




Where Was it Taken? In my room, on my desk, with a black backdrop.

What settings did you use? I put the camera to manual and experimented with shutter speed (I tihnk I settled on 6 seconds) whilst lighting the flower from different angles with a torch. I kept the aperture wide open. (f5.6)
I kept the ISO at 100 because I was lighting it with the torch so I didn't think I needed it higher. I did not do anything with the WB as I shot in RAW mode and edited that afterwards.

What gear (camera, lens etc) did you use?
I used my Sony A200 and the kit lens.

Why did you compose the shot as you did?
I thought it looked cool being in the middle how it is, I wanted the photo to kind of show how the flower still grew even in darkness. ie. it wasn't giving up.

What post production work have you done on the shot (if any)?
I firstly edited the White Balance in the software that comes with the camera. Then I convered to JPEG and uploaded to picnik.com
I made the exposure lower and the contrast higher to give it a sort of unrealistic look that I liked. I also cloned out some leaves from the plant and cropped out the vase.

What were you hoping to achieve with the shot?
I wanted to portray something to do with 'giving up' or not giving up. My legs keep failing on me and at first I wanted to take a photo of the flower and some feet but I then decided it might be more powerful if it was just a lone flower.

What did you do well?
I was pleased with the choice of subject

How could you have improved it?
Perhaps tried to get the clear black background in camera rather than edited on the computer afterwards.


I'd be interested to know what people thought. I did have a lot of fun getting to this final stage and learnt a lot so I thought I'd share. ^_^

[RLucas]

I am sorry I don't have a more wordy critique, except that I really like it! So much so, that I faved it!

[FocalFrenzy]

It's a gorgeous image, with a powerful message. It tells me to never give up. There is beauty in the dark, you just have to look harder, to find it. Thanks for sharing your set-up.

[steaminhaggis]

Wow! What an amazing image.

Thanks for sharing and the passing on the info of how it was shot.

Cheers,
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[chl0e]

Thank you for all your kind words everyone, I really appreciate it, it's so nice to have kind things said about your work.

Also thank you to the moderator who put the picture into my post, I always forget how it's done xD

[Hubble]

Originally Posted by chl0e

I made the exposure lower and the contrast higher to give it a sort of unrealistic look that I liked. ^_^

chl0e - can you explain this process for me in a little more detail - how and why (Hubble = amateur)

[patriciam]

Thank you for the explanation on how to light this type of shot. I'm playing with flowers on black backgrounds too. I really love the look. I to struggle with my body as I call it "not behaving" so your message really hits home. Thanks again. I've bookmarked it so I can come back often.

[shutterprincess]

This is awesome! I have never considered photographing flowers on a black background. Very interesting thing to try one day.

[eggladyz]

What a beautiful image. I love taking pics of flowers but never tried that. I'm still new to taking pictures. Thanks for sharing your how tos. Your photo really tells a story.

[chl0e]

Originally Posted by Hubble

chl0e - can you explain this process for me in a little more detail - how and why (Hubble = amateur)

Thank you everyone for the really kind words!!

Hey Hubble, sure
Sorry it took me ages to reply I'm a bit of a fool when ti comes to checking my threads >_>


What I did was I use picnik.com which is a free online editing software. I then darkened the image with the exposure tool to make th ebackground entirely black. I turned up the contrast a bit aswell to give it th at kind of brighter, unreal look.

You should check out picnik.com and have a go at fiddling about with it with your pics! I loved it so much I bought premium (more features )